Smart Device Programming Tools and Examples for Instrument Control

Introduction

Smart Device refers to the smart phones and tablet PCs that continue to become more and more a part of our personal and professional computing and connected lifestyle. One of the big benefits of smart devices for test and measurement is they offer the ultimate in ubiquitous access to test data and instrument control. They are natural fit with LXI instrumentation since they can communicate with an Ethernet network, either using Wi-Fi or through a cellular provider’s network via the Internet.

One of the challenges today of using smart devices for LAN based instrument control is there is a not much smart device programming experience out there and there is a lack of smart device programming tools specific to the test and measurement industry. Keysight is working to change that by providing programming tools and example code for Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android specifically designed for LAN / LXI instrument control.

The first programming tools and examples we are rolling out are for instrument IO. When you create instrument control software on a Windows-based PC, many IO tools are available, such as VISA and IVI-COM drivers, that make instrument programming easier by doing all the low-level connection management and data handling for you. Unfortunately these tools and drivers do not exist for smart device programming environments until now. The IO programming tools can be downloaded below for both the iOS and Android. Also below you will find other links for content related to LXI instrumentation and using smart devices for instrument control.